Dragon Fire
by TheMonkfish
Summary: Companion/Prequel story to Dark Imperium. Tiberius Arkei of the Ordo Malleus investigates strange solar activity in his home sytem of Ajax, only to find a plot by Xenos to cause havoc on the civilised worlds of the sector.


**Dragon Fire**

**From The Journals of Inquisitor Tiberius Arkei, Ordo Malleus - **

In that year, we came across unexplained solar activity in my home system of Ajax. Something was causing peculiar irregularities in the processes of the system's star, which was having a most disconcerting effect on the weather of the inhabited planets in the system.

**The Account of Arlen Carneu, Associate of Tiberius Arkei, Ordo Malleus -**

While Arkei was troubled by this strange activity, we at first thought little of it. Eventually, though, reports reached our ears of signals originating from a close solar orbit, and Arkei resolved to investigate this mystery. We travelled to Ajax Prime, in the affected system, which was the closest planet to the irregular star, to enquiry into these signals. Upon arrival, we commandeered a local Bureau that had been monitoring the communications and scoured their data banks for any kind of clues as to their origin.

**Report Originally Filed By Clerk 018482, Ajax Prime Bureau of Interplanetary Communications -**

There have been signals transmitted in four second bursts, twelve times at the peak of every hour in the day for the last three months. No ships have reported to have entered this region of transmission and no stationary orbital is located in that sector. Efforts by our cryptologists to decipher the signals have had no success. It is encoded in a manner that none of our specialists have encountered before, and therefore there is little hope of us decrypting it.

**Carneu's Comments on Said Report**

This is indeed a very suspicious turn of events. If no Imperial ship could have sent those signals, and there is no way of decrypting them, it is likely that they are of Xenos, or even Chaos origin. We must move quickly to ascertain how bad the situation is.

**Scout Drone Recording, Sent To Recon Sector**

+Drone camera online+

Ahead is the star, and a faint outline of an *unknown object* is seen.

+Drone moving in to in investigate+

*Unknown object* clearly not of Human manufacture.

+Drone under attack!+

Hostile intent of *unknown object* confirmed, returni-

+Drone signal lost+

**Arkei's Account of Proceedings**

Our recon drone was destroyed by the source of the signals, but our worst fears have been confirmed; hostile aliens are present. We must move with all haste to destroy these Xenos, and discover whether they are indeed the cause of the solar irregularities.

**Aboard Arkei's Vessel, the **_**Imperial Dragon**_

Tiberius Arkei and his retinue prepared for battle. They would soon assault the alien vessel that was the cause of the signals.

Arkei was a man of short stature, but he was tough and muscular from many years of combat. His hair was tidily cut and jet black, and his grey eyes betrayed an iron will and unrivalled determination. He wore unadorned, practical power armour, helmet-less, but with a Psychic Hood mounted about the neck-plates, as he was a Psyker of some skill. In one hand he bore a Force-Sword of new design, and in the other a plasma pistol, adding to the grim, functional style of his attire.

His retinue wore carapace armour in the same dark grey as their commander. On one shoulder was the Inquisitorial seal, and on the other the Dragon heraldry of Tiberius Arkei.

Carneu, a slim man with short blonde hair, was surrounded by a trio of servo-skulls and carried a lasgun; he would provide tactical aid with his cybernetic companions in tow. He was Arkei's longest serving man, having been in the unit for almost twelve years now, and a staunch ally of the Inquisitor.

Next came Li Leung, a heavyset man of Asiatic descent, who wielded a fearsome Heavy Flamer with the barrel stylised to look like a roaring dragon's maw. Leung was a decorated sergeant of the Imperial Guard, who Arkei had recruited four years previously. He had black hair in a buzz-cut and a piercing glare.

Ceres Valentine, a Bounty Hunter, followed. She carried a battle-worn Hellgun, equipped with a precision scope and adorned with kill markings on the casing. Valentine had dirty brown hair and eyes of the same colour, with a long scar across one cheek from a fight with a Sslyth mercenary.

Finally came Tom Hemlock, a Priest of fearsome repute. Hemlock carried a staff adorned with a burning brazier which could spit flames if he needed it to, and a laspistol for firefights. His thick brown hair formed long sideburns, and about his neck was a gold Rosarius, the symbol of his office.

Behind them stood a dozen of the elite storm trooper unit 'Arkei's Dragons' they wore the grey carapace of his employment, and upon the left shoulder plate was emblazoned a roaring drake surrounded by a laurel wreath. The right shoulder bore the Inquisitorial mark. The soldiers were armed to the teeth with Hellguns and shotguns, and bandoliers of ammunition along with the feared incendiary grenades they were famed for making use of.

The vessel came to approach the Xenos ship. Purple blasts of dark energy lanced out from its jagged structure, narrowly missing the Imperial Dragon thanks to the helmsmanship of the Imperial pilot. Arkei's ship returned fire with Las-Batteries blazing, but shadowy shields absorbed their onslaught and left the enemy vessel unharmed.

"With me" ordered Arkei, "we shall board them by teleport and take them by surprise!"

Arkei's technicians had by now formed a scan of the enemy ship's interior via their sensors. There was a large area on the Port side of the ship that they could assault without much risk. As men of the Ordo Malleus, the Warp-transit of a teleport would not pose too much danger, for they were hardened against the dangers of Chaos by years of training and experience.

The boarding party piled into the Teleport room, and with a flash of brilliant blue and the howl of of Warp-gale they were set loose within the bowels of the enemy vessel.

**Hostile Ship Interior, Prepare to Engage!**

The inside of the ship was shadowy. Jagged edges and spikes were everywhere, and the colours of purple, black, and midnight blue were all around. The chamber they had appeared in seemed to be some manner of command deck, for all about them surprised Xenos crewmen were scrambling for their weapons. As they looked up from their control consoles to see attackers.

Arkei growled as he recognised the foe. They were Dark Eldar, sadistic, treacherous, and cruel Xenos convinced of their own supremacy. An Eldar crewman with a knife drawn rushed Arkei, but the Inquisitor sliced off the attacker's arm with a flourish of his Force-Sword, sending the maddened Xeno falling backwards clutching at his bleeding stump. Across the chamber, an enemy soldier clad in barbed armour assailed Hemlock with a spiked whip that crackled with energies, only for the man's Rosarius to absorb the brunt of the attack and for Hemlock to incinerate his assailant with his Pyre-Staff.

Carneu's lasgun shots were evaded by an Eldar warrior. The Xeno nimbly dived aside from the hail of bolts spewed by the blonde man's rifle, and, with supernatural agility, vaulted toward him with a razor sharp cutlass. Carneu blocked the sword with his lasgun, but the Eldar blade sheared clean through the gun and cut it in half. Carneu clubbed his attacker with half of the gun, stunning him for a moment, then kicked him square in the chest. While agile, the enemy lacked in strength and was hurled back, where he was impaled on one of the spiked control consoles.

Leung set a cluster of enemies alight with his mighty weapon as they tried to bring long-barrelled guns to bear on us. The burning Xenos yelled in anger and pain as they flapped about. As another prepared to shoot Leung in the back, her head was taken clean off by a precision shot from Valentine.

There was a strange screeching sound. Arkei saw the doors of the room open on shrieking hinges and a new group of enemies entered, unlike the warriors on the bridge. A fearsome Eldar lead them.

She wore what seemed to be a black lab coat, and her left arm was gone from the shoulder down - a skeletal bio-automaton had been used to replace in, and menacing tendrils of gleaming wire extended from it. Some sort of Eldar equivalent to a welding mask was worn on her head, pushed up onto her forehead. Her features were covered in the grime of mechanical work, and her ice-blue hair was tied back.

With her came vicious looking corsairs. They bore strange and exotic weaponry, even for Dark Eldar.

As they entered, the violence on the bridge stopped, until one of Arkei's storm troopers fired upon the leader.

The shots were absorbed by the whirling cables of her replacement arm. She leapt towards him with superior speed and elegance, and the tendrils seized the soldier, impaling him in no less than seven different places and killing him.

"Surrender now, I really don't want to make any more mess on my command deck" she said, sounding surprisingly bored.

"That is indeed a tall order" snarled Carneu, "you have come to our system, and caused ruin to our solar cycle!"

The Dark Eldar looked fascinated.

"Really?" She gasped, suddenly excited, "what happened, tell me now, I have to know the results of my experiment!"

Arkei was shocked. This Eldar though of this entire plot as a mere scientific experiment?

"What was your purpose?" He growled.

"Oh, this and that, destabilise the fusion reaction process of a star and see what happens to the output of the photon polarity flow, you know, SCIENCE!" She said with a wide (and rather unsettling) grin.

"You're clearly insane, even for an Eldar" added Hemlock.

"Me, insane?" She laughed (again, it was decidedly creepy), "I prefer...unconventional!"

"Sir" said Leung, "negotiating with Eldar is clearly not possible, let us extract and blow this vessel apart"

The Eldar's face suddenly became serious.

"You shouldn't do that" she whispered darkly, "or else that lovely little star of yours might just go bye bye" she made a gesture with her hands indicating an explosion, with a crazed grin across her face.

"Very well" said Arkei, "you leave me no choice". There was a crackling in the air as Arkei focussed his psychic might. Before he could unleash a devastating attack however, the insane Eldar used her tendrils to activate a switch. Purple lightning arced from the celling dispersing the psychic build up and causing Arkei to collapse.

"Now then, lets get serious" she said, with the psychotic grin only getting wider, "you give me all the data you have on the effects of the solar polarity breakdown on the system, and I won't rend you all limb from limb".

Carneu stepped up.

"Will you leave the system, and never return?" He asked.

"Yeah" she replied, "feel free to just not trust me though, I am an Eldar you know".

"As loathe as I am to bargain for my life with an alien, we don't really have much choice" said Valentine, "Arkei is down for the count and we will soon follow".

Carneu signalled to Hemlock, who contacted the vessel they had come on.

"Send us all of the data from the Bureau, all the reports and the readings from the solar probes" he said with a sigh. The Eldar leader smirked.

"That's very good now" she sang (once again, a disturbing display of her insanity), "so I'll leave with that, and you guys are free to go, savvy?"

Leung and Valentine had pulled the unconscious Arkei to his feet and carried him between them.

"How do we know you won't betray us?" Asked Leung.

"You don't" replied the Eldar simply, "but of you'd rather I can slice you to bits for spare parts and drink your blood, or something villainous in that vein?" She laughed, the uncontrolled laughter of a madwoman in total control of the situation "get it? Vein, blood? No? You guys suck!"

"Helm, get us a recall Teleport" signalled Carneu, "and prepare the medical bay for Arkei, he's injured".

"Oh" said the psychotic Eldar woman, "leaving so soon? Well, I guess it can't be helped. I'm Shiori, by the way, and I know who you silly little people are so there's no point in you introducing yourselves".

Carneu grimaced at the taunting.

"You know nothing of us, and one day that will be your downfall" he said, trying to stay stoic.

"That's where you're wrong" she laughed, "I planned for this whole scenario! Why do you think you weren't blasted from the void as you approached? I planted the signals to draw you in, bringing all the data I needed with you! Brilliant isn't it? A self completing experiment!"

Carneu was on the verge of losing his cool facade when the recall Teleport flashes and the surviving men returned to the _Imperial Dragon_.

_**Imperial Dragon**_**, Medical Bay, Arkei Is Under Treatment**

Unbelievably, the crazed Eldar had kept her word. Her ship had left at breakneck speed as soon as the Imperials had retreated.

The solar activity had returned to normal within minutes of the Dark Eldar ship departing. Carneu's research had revealed that the Eldar they encountered was likely one of the dreaded Haemonculi, a feared order of bio-engineers, and mostly crazed killers. They were lucky to have survived with their limbs still attached.

Arkei would be unconscious for almost a week, the medics said, and the psychic trauma caused would put him out of action for over three months. It was time for Tiberius Arkei to disappear, and lay low for a while. Soon, he would find the Haemonculus, and exact a bloody revenge on her. Shiori would regret crossing an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus.

**From the Journals of Tiberius Arkei, Four Months After the Solar Crisis - **

I have finally recovered, it seems, from the eldritch attack that laid me low aboard that Eldar vessel. From now, my primary task is to find the one who humiliated my crew and I, and bring her to justice for the havoc she wreaked upon Imperial worlds with her insane experiments. Now that Ajax seems secure, what with that cult the Dark Imperium quelled last year and now this Eldar experiment ended, I can divert my efforts to this new endeavour. I shall work in secrecy, and the cloak and dagger shall bring swift justice to the enemies of the Imperium. While this is not my usual Modus Operandi, per se, it shall be the best way to operate in this task.


End file.
